In the middle of another hot Tokyo summer, the VisualArt’s Summer Sale has provided a sweet escape from the heat of the season for Key fans. A generous trove of goods awaited us in both of the venues for this year’s sale, each of them rekindling our love for Key’s numerous series. So now, let us take you into the world of the VisualArt’s Summer Sale, so that you too can have a glimpse into this annual event.
Upon entering the 7th floor event space of Gamers Akihabara, we were greeted by a display case showcasing some of the special goods being sold, such as acrylic clear stands featuring major characters from most Key series, mugs, and the recently-released Little Busters Refrain Blu-ray box. Beside the display case were the acrylic stands along with clear files of the same characters. This was followed by aisle-after-aisle of Key goods, each organized into a neat little section.
The left-side wall rack was focused on accessories such as cups, mugs, posters, pins, and new ZHIEND and Girls Dead Monsters bags. These items all had a more practical purpose than most of the other goods, and were fairly new items released for this sale.
Over on the first rack, opposite of the wall, were a bunch of Girls Dead Monster bags, which would be a good addition to your own Angel Beats collections.
Off to the back wall was a whole load of dakimakura covers, along with another set of new posters. The sale had quite a sizable number of dakimakura covers, enough for it to take up the other side of the first rack!
The first half of the second rack was a double-feature, sharing goods between both Charlotte and, surprisingly, planetarian! After not having any planetarian-related goods in years, the anime adaptation sure helped to push its popularity back up. And the Charlotte section was fairly complete, featuring all the music and blu-rays, and even keychains, shirts, and various other paraphernalia.
And what’s this? An entire section dedicated to Kyousuke’s Q&A Mission Complete Book? It’s good to see that they have their priorities straight, as you don’t want to be caught without this book!
The next half of the second rack was all about Little Busters!: tapestries, fans, stickers, pillowcases, keychains, mousepads. You name it, they have it! It’s pretty nice to still see a good amount of support for this series, despite not having many updates in the past couple years.
The entire third rack was dedicated to the ever fan favorite, Angel Beats! The front of the rack was dedicated to media, including music, manga, and magazines…
Then the left side of the rack, with an assortment of stickers, keychains, towels, blankets, and fans…
And the right side of the rack, focusing on button pins, postcards, pillowcases, mugs, and all the rest…
And finally, the backside, which had a plethora of Angel Beats tapestries, for your choosing!
Returning to the back of the room, next to the dakimakura, they were advertising the new products made for the 2016 summer sale, specially drawn by Na-Ga and Itaru Hinoue. There were a good number of tapestries, towels, and even tapestry bags featuring the new designs of Lucia, Akane, Kanade and Nao in their cute summer gear.
And onto the last rack, with the front of the rack dominated by Rewrite media, most of which were only released in the last few days! This includes Rewrite+ and the OP/ED single from the currently airing anime series, along with a good selection of Rewrite manga.
This last rack was a bit longer than the others, allowing it’s 1st half to be filled with a good number of Rewrite goods. The first of these was a set of T-shirts by Cospa, each featuring one of the heroines from Rewrite.
And the rest of the Rewrite goods on the second half of the rack. From here, you could pick up bags, pillowcases, keychains, and everything else available from the other series catered to you Rewrite fans out there.
On the other side of the last rack was a fairly small section with some representation of Kanon, AIR, and CLANNAD. While this was a very small selection, it’s still good to see at least some support for Key’s classic series.
And to top off the last rack was an entire section dedicated to Key’s digital media. Looking for rare CDs from Key Sounds Label? Or maybe you want to pick up that volume of the Little Busters anime that you are still missing? This is the section for you!
Finally, we move on to the last section of the Gamers event floor: the right-side wall, featuring brand new T-shirts. There were some pretty unique and subtle designs, featuring Jena from planetarian, and Tomori’s power from Charlotte. Along with that were the advertised shirts featuring the new designs of the 2016 Summer Sale.
And what goods scream summer more than microfiber towels! Featuring a wide variety of characters, I’m sure that you’ll be able to find one that suits you!
After purchasing your share of goods, you will be given a stamp card, receiving one stamp for every 1000 yen spent at the summer sale. Get 5 stamps, and you earn the chance to win a gigantic tapestry, like the own shown in the header image of this post.
However, in order to roll, you’ll have to head off to a different venue. That’s right, in case you didn’t remember, this year’s VisualArt’s Summer Sale takes place in two venues! And more shelving space of course means more Key goods!
Upon entering the second venue, located an Animate Akiba Culture Zone, you are greeted by a selection of pillowcases and blankets, along with samples of each of them. All the better to get a good night’s rest with.
The venue here at Animate was much smaller compared to the Gamers counterpart, only having two small racks for all its goods. The first aisle contained mostly Rewrite-related tapestries, which you may have noticed were missing from the other venue.
The second rack contained an assortment of items also available in Gamers: the special clearfiles and stands, bags, and an assortment of various goods from Rewrite, Angel Beats, and Charlotte.
At the back of the aisle, however, was the real kicker. It contained a special assortment of Rewrite goods featuring art from the currently airing anime series! These are goods that they don’t have available in Gamers, and it’d be worth your time to check these out. They had phone cases, mini-tapestries, keychains, and even a small television showing episodes of the Rewrite anime.
And with that ends this special coverage of the VisualArt’s Summer Sale 2016! It was definitely another great experience for me, and with even more goods announced to come to the sale, I’m sure it’s gonna get even better. If by any chance you will be in Japan over the next two months, check out our info article for details on this sale so that you too can enjoy what Key has to offer this year!
